In 'Surviving together: Social cohesion and Covid-19 infections and mortality across the world', Jimena Pacheco Miranda, Sanchita Bakshi and Irene van Staveren investigate how and to what extent social cohesion influenced the spread and mortality of COVID-19.
They argue that rather than the quality of health care systems and government type and capacity, it is the level of social cohesion that is better able to explain the variation of infection and death rates between countries as it better captures the societal influence on the pandemic, by its concern with the common good and relationships between (rather than within) social groups.
They therefore analyze the role of social cohesion in the spread and mortality of COVID-19 in a large cross-country analysis and study the pathways through which social cohesion is likely to affect COVID-19 outcomes. What they find is that more cohesive societies, in particular those with less divisiveness between social groups, may be better equipped to reduce the impact of a pandemic.
Read the full article online - 'Surviving together: Social cohesion and Covid-19 infections and mortality across the world', in Critical Public Health. July 2023.
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